Creativity is rooted in my DNA. The women who came before me were makers, on both sides of my family. Both of my grandmothers were excellent seamstresses. My mother taught dressmaking, and the women before them worked as leather artisans and craftswomen.
When I was younger, I wanted to be a fashion designer, but I wasn’t a seamstress. (I had no patience for pattern making.) But I could draw and had plenty of ideas about how women could look their best. So, I tried all sorts of other creative outlets. For instance, I worked as a makeup artist before I became pregnant.
But when I became a mother, that creative urge was put on hold. There was simply no headspace left for it when my firstborn became seriously ill.
Yet creative desires don’t just fade; they wait for the space and the right time to emerge again. As my son got better and life unfolded, my urge to make things popped up now and then. Like during the quiet months of the pandemic, when the world went into lockdown and the pace of life slowed down. That inner urge bubbled back to the surface. I needed to work with my hands again.
That’s when I discovered tufting. OMG, I could draw with fibers! A new creative outlet unlocked. Tufting is a textile art form in which you shoot yarn into a canvas using a tufting gun. It became my therapy, my language, and my rebirth as a maker. Who needs a therapist when you have a tufting gun? (Just kidding. Mostly.)